Reaction from inside the court room after Pell’s appeal was dismissed.

Eliza Rugg (@Eliza_Rugg9)

Pell now stooped in his chair with head bowed while Justice Anne Ferguson is reading a summary of the case against him. The 78yo prisoner looks frail and dejected. First time since the guilty verdict that his poker face has gone. He looks destroyed.

Justice Mark Weinberg – the dissenting judge – said the complainant’s account of the second incident was “entirely implausible” and “not convincing”. In regards to the first incident, Weinberg “might well have found it difficult to say the jury was acting reasonably” in finding him guilty [and] were bound to have a reasonable doubt about the cardinal’s guilt.

During the trial Pell’s lawyers had argued his robes were not capable of being moved in the way the complainant alleged. Ferguson said she and Justice Maxwell found the robes that Pell wore were capable of being manoeuvred in a way that might be described as to one side or apart.

Having reviewed the whole of the evidence two of the judges of the court of appeal – Maxwell and I have decided it was open to the jury to be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that Cardinal Pell was guilty of the offences charged. We decided there was nothing about the complainant’s evidence that meant the jury must have had a doubt about the complainant’s account. It is not enough that the jury might have had a doubt, but they must have had a doubt. This was a compelling witness, clearly not a liar, not a fantasist and was a witness of truth.

Chief Justice Anne Ferguson: “The task for the appeal court is to decide whether on the whole of the evidence it was open to the jury to be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the accused was guilty. Justice Maxwell and I have decided it was open to the jury to decide Pell was guilty. In other words we decided nothing about the complainant’s evidence ... which mean that the jury must have had a doubt about the truth of the complainant’s account.”

Ferguson tells the court the three judges unanimously agreed to throw out the second and third grounds for appeal – that Pell’s lawyers were not permitted to play a 19-minute animation to the jury in their closing address, and that Pell did not enter his plea of not guilty in the presence of the jury panel. The unreasonable grounds was dismissed by two of the three judges.

Chief Justice Anne Ferguson: “Those recordings [of the trial] went for more than 30 hours. We’ve watched those recordings more than once. The written transcript is approximately 2,000 pages in length. Like the jury we were taken to St Patrick’s Cathedral to be shown what the jury had seen.”

Chief Justice Anne Ferguson: “As the trial judge, the chief judge, commented when sentencing Cardinal Pell, there has been vigorous and emotional criticism of the cardinal and he has been publicly vilified in some sections of the community. There has also been strong support of the cardinal by others. It is fair to say this case has divided the community.”